Miyazaki on iPad’s ‘strange masturbation-like gesture’

"It's disgusting. On trains, the number of those people doing that strange masturbation-like gesture is multiplying."

Yes, 69-year-old anime director Hayao Miyazaki, creator of films such as My Neighbor Totoro and Howl's Moving Castle, has made his feelings about the iPad quite clear in his production company's monthly newsletter.

Speaking in an interview with Studio Ghibli's pamphlet Neppuu, the director and animator said he feels no "admiration or excitement whatsoever" towards Apple's three million-selling wonder gadget, and is quite sick of seeing Japanese commuters poke and prod their devices.

Apple shouldn’t feel too slighted by Miyazaki's above comments, as the famed director is a notorious technophobe. Speaking with Kirainet back in 2008, just after the release of Ponyo in Japan, the film’s director admitted he doesn’t have a computer, a fax machine (he’s not alone there), a DVD player and has even forgotten how to operate a video recorder.

No worries, because he doesn’t watch TV. He sends handwritten letters instead of emails and has only played one video game -- a computerised version of Japanese board game Shogi, but Miyazaki lost and accused the computer of cheating. “ The PC checks all approaches. That’s not fair,” he said.